


but i want it (it's a crime)

by maih_em



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, and peter's not complaining, both canon-wise and history-wise, but he gets distracted, don't be fooled by the setting this isn't at all related to s3e1 ride, for gay reasons, morse is flirty, morse never joined the police AU, peter jakes is meant to be investigating things, set in bixby's house but that's irrelevant, this isn't really set in any particular time, undercover detectives!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:53:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22025866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maih_em/pseuds/maih_em
Summary: Rule one of being undercover is not to get tipsy and tell attractive strangers that you’re undercover. Even when you’re overcome by some inexplicable urge to trust them, because that’s almost certainly down to the alcohol as well.
Relationships: Peter Jakes/Endeavour Morse
Comments: 21
Kudos: 59





	1. he's sitting on his own again

It was safe to say that going undercover at one of Joss Bixby’s renowned house parties was one of Peter’s more appealing assignments. He and Strange drove there straight after work on a Friday night, parking the Jag a few minutes away in the woods to maintain their cover. Cowley had spent the last week trying to connect a particularly elusive gang member to an extraordinarily well-hidden drug smuggling operation, and where better to look for illicit drug-dealing than in plain sight at a millionaire’s house party?

As planned, he and Strange parted ways as soon as they entered the party, and they both set about trying to look like they belonged there. Before he could even get his bearings in the vast entrance hall, trays laden with glasses appeared right in front of him and suddenly, as easy as breathing, he was gulping down champagne that was probably more expensive than his rent for the month. A sickly concoction of smoke and alcohol hung like smog in the air; Peter stifled a cough as he became accustomed to it.

He felt underdressed despite wearing his best suit, because the guests that flowed around him as if he was a pebble in a river seemed to have been plucked straight from the 20s. All flapper dresses and cheap wigs and feather boas, and music blaring from every bloody direction. Peter left the half-empty champagne flute on a nearby surface before digging his hands tensely into his pockets.

This had seemed so easy in the office briefing. He arrives, he mingles, he pretends to have fun but not too much lest he get carried away and forget he is a detective, he provides the CID with crucial evidence. _Mingling_ was a lot harder than it seemed, especially when everyone was already far drunker than you.

He smiled briefly at a gaggle of young women who passed him, squealing about nothing important and clutching to each other as if they expected the bustling crowd to rise into a tsunami and engulf them at any moment. (Peter didn’t feel all that different.)

In the end, he settled leaning against the wall in the main hall, close enough to the action that he could at least _pretend_ to be doing his job, but suitably far away that he didn’t look out of place all on his own. He worked his way through an abandoned tray of canapés and tried his best not to look grumpy.

It wasn’t meant to be this bloody difficult. It was a party, it was drinking and socialising, Peter was practically _built_ for something like this, wasn’t he? He was the social one at the pub, right? The one who brought girls home? The one who didn’t like to take things so seriously?

He needed a bloody fag.

Faintly wanting to explore the rest of the house while he had the chance, Peter found himself wandering upstairs, through rooms half-filled with unfamiliar faces. He ended up on a balcony, the cool air dragging him back to reality, and his fingers instinctively started lighting a cigarette. It was comforting in a way that the alcohol-infused second-hand smoke downstairs was not; it was calming, grounding, _normal_.

“Do you have a light?” came a soft voice from behind him, one that felt soothingly peaceful compared to the empty shrieking below. He turned to see a man standing next to him; he was scruffily dressed and just as out of place as Peter, with wide, intimidated eyes. Blue eyes, a mop of hair that wasn’t quite ginger but was close enough, and what looked like freckles in the half light. Not traditionally handsome, but the kind of guy that girls would be inexplicably drawn to before they even knew it had happened. If he was less sober, Peter might even have called him pretty. (In fact, a couple of drinks later, he did just that.)

Peter held his lighter up to a cigarette that balanced on the man’s lips until it caught and watched him from the corner of his eye as they both stood in the cold evening air, exhaling a combination of smoke and cold clouds of breath.

“Enjoying the party?” Peter asked, for lack of anything else to say, and for some reason desperate for the man not to get bored and wander off.

“Not really.”

“Me neither,” Peter admitted, wishing he hadn’t discarded his champagne, and simultaneously craving something much stronger. “I’m Peter, by the way,” he added, as if the man cared.

“Morse,” he said, extending a hand, which Peter shook eagerly, thinking far too much about the physical contact and suddenly concerned about how clammy his hands were.

“Is your surname ‘Code’ then, or what?” Peter immediately regretted the terrible joke, and considering cutting his own tongue off to stop it happening again; what was it about this bloody party that had thrown his social skills right out of the window?

Morse rolled his eyes but was otherwise unphased as he exhaled a puff of smoke. “Morse is actually my second name; I don’t use my first.”

“Don’t use it? Is it that bad?”

“It really is.”

“What is it?”

“’M not telling.”

“Please?”

“Oh, _alright_ ,” Morse huffed. “Endeavour.”

For a moment Peter thought the man was joking, but his expectant expression told otherwise. “Bloody hell, I see what you meant now. Think I’ll stick to Morse.”

Morse nodded in agreement and stubbed out his cigarette on the railing before flicking it over the edge. “Shall we sit somewhere? It’s fucking freezing out here.”

At this point in the evening, Peter would have said yes to anything this complete stranger offered him, and he _was_ rather cold in just his suit, so he trailed behind Morse through a corridor until he found himself in a vast room. It appeared to be some grand dining room, with portraits of old men lining the walls and the huge table pushed to one side to make room for the guests.

It was far from empty of people, and there was no escape from the insufferable music, but the rowdiness of the entrance hall had not yet spilled this far into the house.

“What brings you here?” Peter wondered as Morse took two fresh glasses of champagne and a small bowl of peanuts from the dining table, before gesturing to a cushioned window seat at the quieter end of the room. “Seeing as you said you’re not enjoying yourself.”

“I don’t normally come to things like this, but I live down by the lake, so I thought that if I’m going to be kept up by the noise all night, I might as well get some free drinks out of it.” Morse sat next to him on the seat, his head tilted back to lean against the wall (and, presumably, to make Peter feel utterly weak at the sight of his neck). He was hyperaware of every single place they touched: Morse’s knee moved slightly against his own as he bounced his leg along to the muffled music, their hands were mere centimetres apart. “And my old college friends are always saying I don’t get out enough.”

Though he hadn’t pinned Morse from the off as an Oxford boy, he wasn’t surprised at this information. There was something about him, this feeling of mystery, like he’d spent so long learning about the past that the present had moved on without him, leaving him permanently out of kilter with everyone else.

“How about you? Are you here with anyone?”

Peter stumbled with his words, doing a fantastic job of cocking up his whole subtle-undercover-policeman thing. “Um… no, I’m- no it’s just me. Just fancied a night out.”

Now that he was a few drinks deeper into the evening, Peter felt himself relax slightly. He also found his gaze gravitating towards Morse increasingly often, and for longer each time.

“What do you do for a living?” Peter couldn’t help but feel that he was being asked an awful lot of questions for someone who was meant to be pursuing enquiries himself.

“I’m in the police, actually. Detective Sergeant.”

“Oh? You didn’t strike me as the type.”

“What type _do_ I strike you as then?”

Morse considered this for a moment, before looking at him and laughing softly. “I don’t know.”

“I’m actually undercover here.” Peter felt the words slip out of his mouth before he realised it was happening, and bit his tongue hard as soon as he did. _You fucking idiot what are you thinking?_ Inspector Thursday would have had a bloody _fit_ if he was here.

After all, rule one of being undercover is not to get tipsy and tell attractive strangers that you’re undercover. Even when you’re overcome by some inexplicable urge to trust them, because that’s almost certainly down to the alcohol as well.

“Well you’re not doing a very good job of it.”

“No.”

The two of them worked their way through a silver tray of little pastry circles topped with various casserole-like toppings, and they flowed from conversation to conversation with ease. At one point, Morse brought his knees up to his chest and shifted the cushions behind him, looking like he was about to go to sleep right there and then.

But then his hand crept out, ever so slowly, and a few fingers rested against Peter’s. _That_ was new.

If they hadn’t been in public, Peter probably would have tried to kiss him then. In his younger days, he might have even dragged Morse to somewhere more private and done things he would undoubtedly regret the next day.

But he was technically working, so he stayed where he was and enjoyed the comforting sensation of Morse’s gentle fingers dancing back and forth on his own.

“Did you, by chance, come here on your top secret undercover investigations with someone else?” Morse said, out of the blue.

“Why?” Peter was on edge again, suddenly suspicious.

“There seems to be someone trying to get your attention.”

Morse gestured towards the door, and Peter turned to see Strange, cheeks red from alcohol and his tie a tad askew, peeking into the room, beckoning him over frustratedly.

“Nice to see City Police trains all of their Sergeants to be so tactful and subtle,” Morse mused.

“I need to go,” Peter said sadly, standing up and brushing the pastry crumbs from his trousers. “Thanks for… whatever this was.” Knowing that Strange was watching him, he felt nervous, suddenly, as if he’d been caught smoking in the woods by a schoolteacher.

He made to hurry away, but Morse grabbed him by the wrist. “Wait a moment, here’s my number.” He took out a small notebook and pen from his jacket pocket and scrawled something on it, before ripping the page out and pressing it into Peter’s hand. “Are you around tomorrow evening?”

Peter nodded eagerly without a thought. If he had something already planned on Saturday, then he could bloody well move it.

He held Morse’s gaze for a moment longer, drinking in those stupid blue eyes, before scurrying away to find Strange.

“Wotcha,” Peter blurted, noting the uncertainty in the other man’s eyes.

“How did the enquiries go?” Strange asked, already suspicious, once they had left the premises, and the cold air wrapped around Peter once again.

Peter swallowed anxiously. “Good?

“Find anything useful?”

“Uh… well-”

“You were chatting with that bloke all night, Jakes. Did you find _anything_ at all?” Strange teased.

“He’s free on Saturday night?” he admitted sheepishly. “Not that the invitation’s extended to you, I don’t think.”

Strange snorted with laughter as they reached the Jag and stepped inside, grateful for some respite from the icy air. “Well I’m glad your love life’s thriving, because our career certainly isn’t.”

They pulled away onto the dirt track, and Peter let his head fall back against the headrest, feeling any remaining tension fall away. _Christ_ he was tired, and it was barely midnight. As his eyes began to droop, Peter shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them warm, clutching Morse’s slip of paper tightly between his fingers like it was the only thing in the world that mattered to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in summary, peter jakes is pure of heart, home of sexual, and dumb of ass
> 
> okay i had the idea for this like two months ago and at the time it was basically a crack fic tbh (honestly it still is). Anyway, fast forward to now when i'm stuck on all my other wips but also just have an urge to write everything all at once, this whole thing just kind of,,, fell out of my head tonight.  
> So here you go. I might follow it up with a little first date sequel but who knows.  
> title is a hozier lyric from Cherry Wine, and the chapter title is a lyric from do you remember the first time by pulp


	2. would you like to come and meet me, maybe?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter goes on a date with Morse. (At least he thinks it's a date. He's spent more time on his hair than he normally would for a platonic meeting.)

Peter was nervous. More than nervous, in fact.

His Saturday shift had been relentlessly boring, which he took as a personal attack against his nerves. After six straight hours of paperwork, he had built up so much anxious energy that he could have climbed the bloody walls. Even Strange, who was notoriously patient, told him to stop clicking his pen unless he fancied signing the rest of his documents with a fucking quill.

It was stupid, and not characteristic of him at all. He was normally so calm and collected, but the prospect of an evening with Morse (who was still effectively a stranger to him) had left him weak at the knees like a teenage bloody girl. He’d been fussing with his hair for half an hour and was in danger of running late.

Peter reached for a cigarette from the pack in his pocket, desperate for _something_ to calm his nerves, but found it empty. _Fuck_.

It was fine, he thought; Morse probably wouldn’t like the smell anyway, and there was only so much smoke that his cologne could cover up. Why did he care? He never normally cared, it was so stupid, it wasn’t even explicitly a _date_.

He huffed angrily at himself, before taking one last look in the mirror and heading out to the car.

\- - - - -

Peter started to worry that he’d got the wrong address when the road just… stopped. Not too far from where he and Strange had parked the previous night, the road became a gravel track as he passed the turn off to Bixby’s driveway, and after that it disappeared entirely. He tucked the car out of the way and got out, flattening out the crumples in his trousers when he stood up.

Morse _had_ said on the phone that he’d have to get out and walk for a while, but not where or how far. All he knew was that the house was by a lake (which he could just about see from his position, despite the dark) and that he _definitely_ wasn’t wearing suitable shoes for walking in the mud.

Trying not to flick dirt onto his trousers as he walked, Peter picked his way through the field down towards the lake, avoiding the puddles caused by that morning’s incessant rain. Once he was relatively close to the water’s edge, he could see a small hut ahead of him, an orange glow emanating from its windows. Surely this wasn’t Morse’s house, there was no _way_ a human person could live there; it was barely bigger than a shed.

He knocked on the door nonetheless, and was glad to hear Morse call out, “just a second!” from within.

He supposed that, with the air of mystery Morse had about him, living in a cabin and chopping wood (and, by the sound of it, listening to opera music) might just make sense. Peter hurried to straighten his clothes and wipe the worst of the mud from his shoes onto the doormat as he heard the music scratch to a halt and footsteps pad towards the door.

Morse was flushed pink, his hair damp and curling as it dried, and shirtsleeves pushed up to his elbows. So Peter stopped thinking entirely.

“Peter!” The man grinned, beckoning him inside. “Drink?”

“Please.”

Morse’s cabin was no bigger on the inside than it seemed from the outside, although it had a sort of charm to it, with its paraffin lamps and the boxes of Morse’s belongings stacked up because there was no room to unpack them. A cold bottle of beer was pressed into his hand.

“Sorry it’s small,” Morse admitted, slouching on his bed for lack of any other seating, “and cluttered. It’s not much, really, but it serves a purpose.”

“It’s nice.”

Peter followed Morse’s lead and sat down onto the bed, resting his back against the wall. It was hard not to stare at the other man, all stretched out beside him, eyes glazed over, shirt riding up just a little. He was torn between not wanting to come on too strongly and his overwhelming urge to watch Morse unravel underneath him.

He took a rather large gulp of beer and tried to wash the thought away.

“So, what do you do? Got a job?”

“I used to work at the library, the Bodleian. Not anymore though; I needed a change. That’s why I moved here.” He gave Peter a look, one that made him feel warm and safe and _seen_. “Perhaps I should become a policeman,” Morse mused.

Peter made the mistake of imagining him dressed in the uniform and it rather threw him off whatever he’d been thinking previously. “And… outside of work?”

“I listen to music a lot, not anything you’d like, though. Crosswords. Sometimes I go for a swim.”

“In the lake?” Morse nodded. “Isn’t it freezing?”

“A little.”

“You’re insane.”

Morse grinned, sitting up and finishing his beer. “Fancy a dip?”

“You’re _insane_.”

There were hands around his wrists, cold ones, pulling him up to a standing position. “I’m not joking,” Morse murmured, far too close for Peter to have any hope of keeping his cool. “You _can_ swim, right?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “Course I can. I’m just not exactly dressed for it, am I?”

“Nor am I. Improvise.”

And then, sending Peter’s mind to all manner of inappropriate places, Morse started to unbutton his shirt. He was down to his vest and pants before Peter had even taken a breath. Reluctantly (and very much distracted by the man in front of him) he pulled his jumper over his head and began unbuckling his belt.

The murky water could only have looked less inviting if it were full of sharks; he was very hesitant to get in, but Morse was holding his hand and pulling him along and smiling coyly, so Peter was ready to do pretty much anything he wanted.

It was, predictably, as cold as ice, but Morse didn’t seem to care. “Aren’t you freezing?” Peter called out as they paddled away from the shore. There was no reply, but he heard Morse’s laugh, glimmering in the darkness.

Morse stopped about ten metres from the bank to wait for Peter to catch up. His hair was plastered to his face, and _God_ he looked so pale in the moonlight. All freckled and rosy-cheeked and _perf-_

Peter was hit in the face by a spatter of water. Morse had the nerve to _giggle_.

“You fucking-” Another splash hit him before he could finish.

All romantic thoughts of Morse put to one side, this was _war_. Peter powered through the icy lake after him until they were close enough to flick a surge of water right into Morse’s face. They shrieked and splashed at each other like children until Peter’s arms were aching and he could barely breathe, and they were far further from the shore than he’d intended to go.

“You’re…” he panted, “ _insane_.”

Morse swam towards him until they were mere inches apart, snaking an arm around Peter’s waist to pull him even closer. Peter inhaled sharply as he felt his skin prickle everywhere that they touched. “ _You’re_ the one that followed me,” Morse breathed.

It occurred to Peter then that Morse like this, damp and glowing and playful, was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen. So, he wrapped his arms around Morse’s neck and pressed their lips together until he felt the other man smiling against him.

Morse’s lips were cold and soft, and they worked their way across Peter’s neck, and down his collarbone. Hands mapped out his chest, their legs bumped against each other as they both trod water; every time they touched was more sacred than the last.

\- - - - -

Morse threw a blanket around him when they returned to the cabin, both dripping wet and shivering uncontrollably. Any effort Peter had put into his appearance earlier that evening was well and truly ruined by now, but that didn’t matter because Morse had _kissed_ him, and was continuing to kiss him as they dried off.

The kisses were different now; they were warmer, and hungrier, and they felt like home.

Although, speaking of _hungrier_ , Morse’s stomach rumbled loudly. “You got any food?”

“I…” Morse trailed off.

“You invited me here on a date and intended not to feed me?” Peter laughed against Morse’s chest.

Now it was _Peter’s_ turn to pull _Morse_ up to his feet, and he held the blanket up around them. “Get dressed, we’re going into town. How do chips sound to you?”

Morse smiled lazily, nestling his face against Peter’s neck. “Sounds great.”

They dressed slowly, because Morse kept distracting him (it was hard to tuck his jumper in when _someone_ was intent on getting underneath it) but eventually made their way outside. Morse turned out the lights, leaving the cabin looking somewhat dingy and depressing.

The walk back to the car was even more arduous than Peter’s arrival, because now they were fighting their way _uphill_ through the mud, and Morse held tightly onto his sleeve all the way up for support (or perhaps so that, if he fell, Peter would go down with him).

Starting to get hungry himself, he sat down in the passenger seat and fastened his seatbelt. When Morse shut the passenger door, though, he leant over until he was practically on top of him and worked kisses down his jaw. “Morse!” Peter huffed, not managing to disguise the weakness in his protest.

“Can’t… help it,” Morse murmured between kisses, manoeuvring onto Peter’s lap, “you’re… fucking… perfect. You’re everything.” He struggled with the tight roll neck of Peter’s jumper before giving up and going in from underneath instead, untucking the top from Peter’s trousers so that he could reach skin.

And Peter was hardly going to say no to that, was he?

Morse was pressing him into the car seat, and yet Peter still somehow felt like he was hanging on for dear life, clutching Morse’s shirt as he let himself be kissed and kissed and kissed. Morse’s hands were everywhere: under his shirt, cupping his face, pulling his hair, clutching his shoulders, and Peter couldn’t even begin to think about what he wanted except _everything at once_.

But then Morse sat up, lips puffy and with a smug expression on his face, and he clambered off Peter’s lap into the passenger seat. He left a sting of cold air in his absence. “You… You can’t just-” Peter complained, his skin still on fire from Morse’s touch.

“I thought we had to buy dinner?”

Peter could have screamed.

A hand worked its way into his drying hair as he drove towards central Oxford, teasing through it as if he _wanted_ Peter to crash the bloody car. This man was far too distracting for his own good.

“It’s not very tidy,” Peter admitted later, as they climbed the stairs to his flat having decided it was more effort than it was worth to go back to Morse’s place. It had been all he could do to stop Morse from eating all of the fish and chips during the short drive from the chippy in the centre of town to Peter’s parking spot. “I wasn’t expecting anyone back here.”

Peter felt exposed, in an odd sort of way, as Morse wandered around his flat, peering at all his clutter, the way he lived, his dirty dishes in the sink. “It’s nice. Very you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Neat. Dark. Everything’s got its place.” He slumped onto the sofa, pulling Peter down next to him, and started digging through the paper wrapping of the fish and chips. “Have you got work tomorrow?”

“Not until after lunch.”

“Good. No rush then,” he purred.

For a moment, when he saw the longing in Morse’s eyes, Peter wondered whether he’d even be alive by the time his afternoon shift rolled around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Predictably, I'm out here writing this at 2am and my eyes hurt, but here's peter being dumb and gay and Morse being an outrageous flirt. I literally didn't expect this random crack fic idea to become two chapters that i'm actually really proud of but such is life i guess, I hope u guys enjoy it!  
> I might write a more coherent chapter note when it's not literally 3am but idk.
> 
> Chapter title is from disco 2000 by pulp.


End file.
